Heroes 1 – Billy Joe Armstrong

The 90’s punk wave hit me hard as a kid

3/11/19

When I was a kid

My hero was Billy Joe Armstrong

The singer of Greenday

I had a book about them

And loved everything they did

Up to and including ‘Nimrod’

I even knew that the drummers real name

Was ‘Frank Edwin Wright the Third’

I had the poster on the wall

And listened to them

At school,

Before bed

While painting miniatures

And every opportunity I got

In grade 6

A girl I despised

Told me they were

Her favourite band too

So I called her fat until she cried

Ruthless brat that I was

At some point

I learned what a sell-out was

And denounced my fan hood

And never listened to them again

Until I was much older

And learned to forgive them

They were the first band I ever saw live

I still think about Billy Joe Armstrong

—

This is the first of three poems about my punk rock heroes from different eras of my youth.

The 90’s punk wave hit me hard as a kid and I still listen to a lot of punk old and new, I thought this might be a good upbeat counterpoint to my recent posts about the hard times.

I stole the last line from Jack Kerouacs ‘On the Road’.